Jia Yingchong

Also known as Zi Situi · Hao Fuxi · Hao Mupi Sanke

Jia Yingchong, styled Situi, with the sobriquets Fuxi, Danpu and the Bark-Clad Idler, came from a scholarly family in Qufu, Shandong. Unlucky in the examinations, he was past forty before he became a selected tribute student. In 1639 he was appointed magistrate of Gu'an county near Beijing and later became a director in the Ministry of Personnel. After the fall of the Ming he returned to office for only a few months before retiring, and he died in 1675 at Ziyang, where he had moved late in life. A gifted storyteller, he used rough, colloquial drum-ballad verse to mock the rise and fall of dynasties in his Mupi Sanke Guci, also called the Historical Drum Ballads, and he also wrote Danpu Hengyan. Kong Shangren wrote a biography of him.